Hardcore Waste Skips

Rubble can go in a normal skip, 4, 6 or 8 yard general waste skip, but if rubble is all you have, a hardcore skip is usually cheaper. A 6 yard hardcore skip starts from £194 + VAT, compared with £243 + VAT for a 6 yard general waste skip. A general waste skip makes sense only if you also need to clear wood, plastics or other mixed waste.

Hardcore is broken solid building material: bricks, blocks, concrete, paving slabs, stone, ceramic tiles and rubble. The load must be free of soil, plasterboard, wood, metal and general rubbish. If your waste includes soil, or hardcore with some tarmac mixed in (under 10%), an inert waste skip is the right choice instead.

No, “yard” measures volume, not weight. A 4 yard skip holds 4 cubic yards, about 3 cubic metres. Mick George’s 4 yard skip is roughly 2.5m long, 1.6m wide and 0.9m deep. How much it weighs depends on what goes in. filled with rubble, it can weigh several tonnes, which is why heavy waste must be loaded level with the top and never piled above it.

The reason is weight. Rubble is so dense that a larger skip filled with it would be too heavy for a skip lorry to lift safely and legally. Mick George hardcore skips therefore come in 4 and 6 yard sizes only, and skips of 12 yards and above cannot take soil or hardcore at all. For bigger jobs, book more than one skip.

For a few bags, the cheapest option is usually your council’s household waste recycling centre. Most accept small amounts of DIY rubble, though some charge, so check first. Clean hardcore can also be reused on site as a base for a shed or path, or given to someone who needs fill. For anything bigger than a car boot load, a 4 yard hardcore skip from £173 + VAT is the most cost-effective skip.

No. A hardcore skip must contain hardcore only, and adding soil, wood, plastic or rubbish can lead to an extra charge. If you are digging out soil as well, an inert waste skip takes bricks, concrete and soil together. For soil on its own, choose a muck waste skip. For mixed household or building rubbish, use a general waste skip.

It depends on the area and how deep you dig. A small patio of 10 to 15 square metres, with slabs and a thin base, usually fits in a 4 yard skip. A larger patio or garden path suits a 6 yard skip. A whole driveway with deep sub-base often fills more than one 6 yard skip, so two skips or grab hire may suit better. Broken material takes up more space than it did in the ground so allow extra room.

Collected hardcore waste goes to a Mick George recycling facility, where it is crushed and screened into recycled aggregates. These include recycled Type 1 crushed concrete and 6F5 crushed hardcore, which are used as sub-base and fill on new construction projects. Keeping hardcore separate means a clean load goes back into use instead of to landfill.